I paint shadows. I’m intrigued by luminosity in painting. This is the driving force behind Light Industry.

I’ve always been fascinated by paintings like those of Manet. The way in which the image and the painting as its own object can be seen simultaneously – fused together as a single luminous entity. This remarkable duality is one of painting’s defining characteristics.

I discovered my subject during a visit to Tiernan’s Classic Motorcycles in Framlingham. It’s part workshop, part counter-cultural ‘museum’. What I found enthralling about the place was the light; a diffused, dusty kind of light that emanated from a grubby, obscured skylight. I thought this significant because I regard light as synonymous with life and luminosity as painting’s equivalent.

Creativity and class are long-standing preoccupations of mine and one of the ways that I’ve discovered to navigate these complex issues is by employing a variety of vernacular idioms. In this instance it’s a rather obsolete, low-tech graphic device, the duotone.

My intention is to make paintings that are both luminous and their own object. This dictates the way I paint. I apply Paynes Gray pigment directly into the medium. Wet into wet, then glaze.